PMP Exam Tip: Interpersonal Skills a PMP Needs: 10. Conflict Management

 

In Appendix X3, the PMBOK® Guide images discusses Interpersonal Skills for the project manager. We are currently reviewing these one by one in our weekly PMP exam tip. Let’s look at Conflict Management.

Conflict is almost inevitable on a project. Project team members and stakeholders may have different opinions, areas of expertise, interests, personalities, work styles and the list goes on. Add other elements often a given on a project to the mix, such as tight deadlines, resource constraints, communication issues, you can see that conflict is rather likely to occur.

Many times, conflict allows for a better solution to a problem. If a team member would rather agree or go with status quo than cause potential conflict by pointing out a flaw, asking a question, or making a suggest an improvement, then it’s easier to be satisfied with a suboptimal solution. However, more often than not, conflict prevents the team from working well together and distracts those involved from the tasks at hand.

The key is being able to prevent conflict or its escalation or if you are not able to circumvent it then, you must know how to control or minimize it when it arises. There are many styles or behaviors that a project manager can choose to adopt when managing conflict. You can be assertive, accommodate, avoid or compromise. Some styles work better than others in certain situations.
How effective it might be depends on the project manager and the people involved in the conflict. A project manager also is not limited to applying just one style, if one approach does not work, he may have to try another to see if that is more effective.

 

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